Customer Reviews

Vanishing Point: A Novel

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4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
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I picked up this book a bit apprehensively, being aware of Markson's experimental style of narration. How could this possibly be termed a "novel" if it is merely a collection of facts from literature, history, music, politics, philosophy and religion? On a foundation such as this, how can one build the basic elements of plot, character and setting? As I read the book, however, I found myself marvelling at Markson's unique skill and vision. The "Author" of the novel arranges his massive collection of information in such a way that the elements in question are completed in the mind of the reader, like looking at an incomplete picture and mentally filling in the blanks. By the end of the book, I was acutely aware of having been moved - remarkably by a superficially disjointed series of anecdotes. Like Author, I was unwittingly swept into the vaguely existant narrative and pressed together the covers with a satisfying sense of enrichment. The flawless blend of tragedy, humor, ambition and madness in the world of human creativity (and destruction) remind the reader of the pleasures and pains of being in touch with truth. Markson will be remembered for this one.

i loved this narrative. anyone who finds rilke's date of death an important detail has my undying attention.
the author is a great voice.
a poet's dream.

With "Vanishing Point," the amazing David Markson lifts himself from cult status to author of what should be a popular instant classic. This mysterious and awe-inspiring examination of a dying writer is a worthy companion to Joyce, Genet and Beckett. Its "Waiting for Godot" quality is invigorated by courage and introspection, its contantly renewed variety educates and deepens with each reading.

David Markson has written this book 4 times, 5 if you include Wittgenstein's Mistress. They're all worth reading but this one is perfect. Markson uses quotations and literary anecdotes almost exclusively to paint a portrait of the author character. That may sound like a difficult read but it's not. It's actually a real page turner. In the ratio of wisdom extracted to reading time invested, this book is one of the highest (Gatsby maybe, Elizabeth Costello, Ficciones, around that level). What else do you want out of literature?

I can't believe this is out of print, I've bought 4 copies of this because I keep giving it away to friends in the midst of drunken literary discussions.

Markson has created something wonderful in his latest work. The idea of an elderly author gathering up all these little tidbits in order to compose what may turn out to be his last work IS the novel. What a great idea. Markson's originality ranks right up there with the works of Beckett and Gaddis. There are many great references re Einstein, Picasso, Fitzgerald, Dickens, Sophocles. Aristotle, Galileo, Hitler, and even 9-11. He also shows the utter personal idiocy of Heideger and Wagner, their brilliant artistry notwithstanding. Never has someone taken so many disparate items and yet synthesized them into a unified, cohesive sequence of thought. This is what great writing is all about.

David Markson is one of the most well read and literary people I know. Conrad Aiken, Malcolm Lowry, William Gaddis, and Frederick Exley were among his friends. He is the author of Wittgenstein's Mistress, which Ann Beattie has called "An absolute masterpiece." He is also the author of Springer's Progress and Reader's Block. He has lived in Greenwich Village for almost fifty years.

Markson was a big reader of literary allusions and quotations. When he first read Under The Volcano, he wrote a fan letter to Malcolm Lowry. They met in Canada a while letter. Markson went on a personal crusade to draw attention to Lowry's work: "Which is why I wrote a master's thesis (at Columbia) on Lowry's Under The Volcano only four years after it was published, for instance, when nobody else had written anything except the original reviews, and so I had the allusions all to myself to dig out."

Markson was also the first person to give William Gaddis' The Recognitions its high rank also. He called it the most important American novel since Moby Dick? "Actually it was just a throwaway passage in an old detective novel I wrote," Markson confesses, "but there too it was only three years after Gaddis had published. I'm delighted, or even honored, when I'm still given credit for it.

Although he would give his right arm to have written The Recognitions, Markson is looks down at Gaddis' later work: "That business of the nonstop conversation, with all the repetitions and digressions and so forth that are supposed to be precisely like real life--except that art is selectivity, damn it. I read an interview where he talked about authorial absense, but what happens instead is that what he hopes will sound natural simply sounds faked. It's a gimmick, and it ultimately makes us infinitely more conscious of the writer than we'd ever be otherwise."

Markson has little interest in current fiction, although he occasionally reads it. His all-time list would include Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights, The Stranger, early Celine, The Sot-Weed Factor, Nightwood, The Ginger Man, early Beckett. He thought very little of Thomas Pynchon. "I've got an odd bias against him. I've always believed that it's a serious reader's responsibility to pick up on virtually any valid literary allusion--even though a shrewd novelist tries to bury such things too, of course, so that the context makes sense even if the resonances are missed."

Markson did read Infinite Jest when it came out, but would make no comment. He remarked "Most of your enthusiasm is for the major stuff just before your own time. But deep down I know, know, that there are books out there just as good as Under The Volcano or The Recognitions--and it's my own damned loss that I've misread them."

When I read the description about the 3x5 cards to my wife, she started laughing - and pointed to my shirt pocket. My PDA is 3x5 cards: phone numbers; appointments; to-do lists; random thoughts all make it to those cards. Fortunately for readers, I have never (nor will I ever) thought of making them into a book. Also fortunately, Markson made his "Author's" into a book.

I love to read those little snippets that usually show up in sidebars of magazines and books that have that AHA! factor. This book is filled with AHA's.

There is not the scent of a plot; nor is there any hint of a character other than the mysterious Author who seems to be going through something much worse than writer's block.

The reason to read this book is to enjoy the factoids while hoping for some insight to any message hidden in them. Make sure you read this while around at least one other person - you WILL have an uncontrollable urge to read many AHA's aloud to someone.

David Markson's book, Vanishing Point, is the third book in a tetralogy of experimental novels concerning an aging author. The other works in the tetralogy are: Reader's Block, the ironically titled This Is Not a Novel, and The Last Novel. Like Markson's other works, Vanishing Point is avante-garde and highly original. It has no narrative or plot to speak of, yet conveys its theme in a remarkably engaging fashion.

The novel begins by telling us that "Author has finally started to put his notes into manuscript form," that he has been scribbling notes onto 3x5 index cards and that the cards now fill two shoeboxes. With that, the novel launches into nearly 200 pages of the scribblings and notes themselves. The notes are a seemingly random reiteration of trivia and musings concerning art, literature, history, science and civilization. Sometimes the notes contain anecdotes or facts; at other times the notes consist of little more than a name or phrase. Gradually, we learn that Author is elderly, enervated and without motivation to do much more than rearrange the order of the cards. Here and there, we learn what Author has in mind --"a novel of intellectual reference and allusion...minus much of the novel." A sense of order begins to appear and the theme of approching death emerges.

This novel is never boring and, despite its formlessness, is actually quite difficult to put down. There is an almost addictive quality to the notes. Markson's protagonists are often isolated and almost hermetically sealed off from social contact and relationships. Yet these characters have genuine insight into the human condition and express humanist feelings. The protagonist in this novel is no exception. By the book's end, I found myself laughing with and shedding a tear over a sparsely-developed, unnamed character whose inner life I was only allowed to glimpse through a collection of jotted notes. In that sense, Vanishing Point is an amazing work.

Its true. Reading Markson is like a validation of one's education. The reader encounters the known and the faintly known in precise, almost monadic, moments. There is a sly narrative behind all this but it's a non-event- the real stuff is the telling anecdote, the revealing humaness and culpability of the living and their witnesses: artists themselves. Everything pushes towards annihilation, except pleasure. This book is a one of many.

Cracking open VANISHING POINT, I was immediately reminded of my art school days... but not painfully so. While I rolled my eyes reading through the first 20 pages, I eventually gave in and allowed myself to enjoy the text.

"Author" is a writer-to-be, a procrastinator, with an extensive collection of quick notes and facts, loosely surrounding the comments, actions, works, criticisms, and deaths of largely Western Civilization's writers, musicians, painters, and philosophers. Too scattered notes for any single text, most likely, but reading them over and over and over again creates a very hypnotic and satisfying experience.

How someone can read Markson and not conjure up Thomas Bernhard, I don't know. WITTGENSTEIN'S NEPHEW vs. WITTGENSTEIN'S MISTRESS? Markson feels like counter-point to Berhard's insane genius. VANISHING POINT a response to CONCRETE.

Berhard's protagonist Rudolph has also done extensive research. For a biography on Mendelssohn. Only he's unable to begin, needing the perfect opening sentence. Markson's Author has a collection of index cards consisting solely of, albeit poor, opening sentences. Where each sentence for Author is almost its own paragraph, Rudoph's entire rant is one long paragraph for 200+ vociferous pages. Each man is ill, if only in mind, and each man's procrastination and self-indulgent obsession ultimately points to his mortality.

VANISHING POINT is a quick read. An entertaining, artful read. Perhaps not a must read, however.

I must say giving the shorter, inverted bits ("Haarlem, Frans Hals died in.") the voice of Yoda made the book a bit more entertaining.